Mega Man Returns in ‘Street Fighter X Mega Man’

Many Mega Man fans had almost given up hope on the Blue Bomber’s return, and who could blame them after the lack of interest displayed from the franchise’s developer. Capcom’s once iconic hero has been on the receiving end of two cancelled projects as of late (Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe), and he didn’t even make the cut when it came to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3‘s roster. After what felt like an incredibly long wait, however, the return of everyone’s favorite little blue robot is finally upon gamers everywhere.

Capcom has announced that to honor the 25th anniversary of both Street Fighter and Mega Man, they’ll be releasing a crossover appropriately titled Street Fighter X Mega Man. This game, unlike Street Fighter X Tekken, will be a platformer based on the Blue Bomber’s past adventures in the core Mega Man series, and it’ll allow the original Mega Man character to go toe-to-toe with recognizable fighters from the SF series.

These well-known combatants will act as bosses, and they’ll even surrender unique abilities upon their defeat. Like in past games, Japan’s Rock Man will then be able to a use these new found powers to help dispatch any other wannabe champions that may stand in his way. All of the action, of course, will be rendered in classic 8-bit glory, which many fans will be more than content with.

Fortunately, the wait for Street Fighter X Mega Man won’t be a long one, as the game will become available on December 17th. It’s exciting to know that the game is indeed arriving soon, but the best part about all of this news is that the game will actually be made available as a free PC download. All fans have to do to score themselves a copy is head over to Capcom Unity’s Mega Man page on launch day, and they’ll be able to download it.

Capcom also has other plans for Mega Man’s 25th anniversary, but it isn’t going into specifics quite yet. According to the official announcement on the Capcom Unity blog, the company hopes that this is a sign to their fans that they haven’t turned their back on the beloved franchise.

“As for more MM25 news… stay tuned. I’ve been running those meetings all year and we have stuff to share that day and through 2013. We know it’s been a hard year for Mega Man fans, but I hope this proves our love and intent to the series, and that we have not heard the last of the little guy.”

Many may remember that Street Fighter‘s Ryu was originally going to appear in the now canned Mega Man Universe as a playable character, so fans should be excited to see some scenarios explored by that failed project have been given new life. Street Fighter X Mega Man was originally pitched to Capcom’s Christian Svensson by a fan named Seow Zong Hui, and after members of Capcom got their hands on it they knew it needed to become a reality. It’s awesome that Capcom is willing to work with the community to address the absence of the Blue Bomber, and it’ll be interesting to see what else comes to fruition in the future as a result.

Stay tuned to Game Rant for more details on any news pertaining to Capcom’s plans for future Mega Man titles.

9 Comments

There still isn’t much of a reason to have hope for his return, but this is a tiny, tiny step in a turn to being in the right direction. What’s hilarious about this whole thing is that it’s pretty much exclusively being made by Sonic (Seow Zong Hui) with music provided by another fan and licensing the only thing provided by Capcom. At the very least, you can play it with a gamepad, the selection of Street Fighters is pretty good, and it’s free. So, no, I don’t believe this is much of a genuine effort by Capcom. They’ve got a LOT of work to do if they want to prove they’ve changed.

i think all they’re really caring for nowadays are their sequel franchises, much like activision and other american publishers. these guys have no proper direction anymore and imo are struggling to make ends meet, hence why they’re cutting smaller franchises that have smaller fanbases out and only focusing on garbage like resident evil (which always gets poor reviews yet is still made) and their fighting games (which get 400 different editions with barely anything new).

the fact that Capcom is licencing this is proving that they care and if it wasn’t for them then we probably wouldn’t know about this. they showed it at SF 25th anniversary tournament which is a huge deal. They care and no on can deny that.

Just you wait! im positive you and the fans of megaman will be cheering on his 25th anniversary.

I can believe it for Capcom of America, at the very least. Those guys, while not being completely innocent, are at least TRYING. I’m always cheering for Mega Man. I’m just not really happy with his abusive relationship with Capcom. I hope that the anniversary is everything they say it will be, but nothing can keep me from thinking it won’t be until they actually show us.

well what if those cancelled megaman games were terrible? what if they did the fans a favor? i know that if a god of war game came out and was terrible i would have no faith in santa monica studios anymore and would want the series dead so it doesnt make the past games forgettable.

The thing is, from what people who actually played the demos of said games said, they were pretty fun. Heck, the trailers MADE them look fun. That’s a lot more than one can say for plenty of games these days. There is nothing that can be said or done to convince me or other Mega Man fans that it was in any way a rational idea to cancel the games. And just because a later game in a series is bad, it does not mean that I wouldn’t want to go back and play the older, better games. Sonic 06, for example, might as well be a crime against humanity, but the original games are still good and Sonic Adventure is still a fun series.

COREY_1993 2 years ago

i heard sonic 06 was rushed because of the fans. the fans wanted that game out for a anniversary which caused it to have huge game breaking bugs. mind you, sonic games after that sucked too…

i guess no one will really know if those games were great, wonder why they cancelled the games.

Kholdstare89 2 years ago

Sonic 06 was rushed because Sega wanted to get the game out before the holidays and because they had to develop it for two consoles at once (this was back when both the 360 and PS3 were new). I don’t believe there is a single instance of a game being released early because of the fans.

As for why they cancelled the games, it’s either due to a grudge against Inafune or because they felt that they couldn’t make Resident Evil money out of them. The former is the strongest fan theory and the latter is based on statements made by higher ups. You know, even though Resident Evil makes RIDICULOUS amounts of money and not even Street Fighter could possibly make as much.